In the papers a few days back I read about some guy in a "Maple Story" forum who said something about JC students being smarter than poly students and about how poly students were dumb because they couldn't make the cutoff for JCs. I think his name was "redpony" or something like that.
Before I continue I would like to stress that I do not agree with his view. I'm not trying to be politcally correct here. I seldom am because being politically correct is boring and I already do it on an unwilling basis in real life. Don't you just want to tell people how idiotic they are sometimes?
Anyway, I have good reasons for not agreeing with Mr. Redpony.
In Singapore, I think we've been brainwashed to think in a one tracked way. As in kid goes to good schools, then goes to good university, gets high paying job in some super firm, gets the chicks and fast cars, becomes a man in white, takes over the world. Ok, so maybe I exaggerated a little at the last part. A man in white only controls 697 metres square. (Figure increasing due to land reclamation)
In reality that doesn't happen. A thousand things can go one way or the other, and without considering all the possibilities, one would not be able to call another stupid without sounding retarded himself. Which was exactly what this brainwashed mule did.
The problem with just assuming that because I went to a JC I'm smarter than you is, how do you define smarter? Are you smarter just because you know what potassium permanganate is and he doesn't? No, you just know what potassium permanganate is.
Or is it because you can do math better than him? No, that just means that you are better at math than he is. And in a thousand other ways, I can show you that there is no real conclusive way to prove that you are smarter than another person just based on a series of tests that you can study for. It is, if I may say so, just pure regurgitation of useless information that I forget 2 months later. I went through that system too. Don't tell me I don't know what the O levels are like. I can even tell you what the A levels are like you "oh I am so smart" JC student.
I can honestly tell you that people in polytechnics aren't necessarily smarter or dumber. They just see things differently, or they don't like mugging. Obviously there will be the odd one out that makes me rethink whether they really are stupid, but for every one such poly guy there is also one such JC guy around. E.g. Redpony. Its never right to generalise, unless you're calling your boss an idiot. You're almost always right on that one.
Another problem with the whole smart concept? So what if you are smart? It doesn't mean that you'll succeed in life, especially since you don't know how to use your "smartness" in the right places. Flaming people on a "Maple Story" forum? Why don't you go figure out a way to get the next Nobel Prize instead, or start up the next BreadTalk or Creative? Or if you really can't do any of the above, become a man in white?
You may be smart, but that doesn't mean that 30 years down the road you won't be that pitiful old man sweeping the road, or in some jail somewhere. Smartness doesn't mean anything. Its what you do with it. If you don't succeed in life, how smart you are doesn't mean shit. You're a JC student. Don't you take General Paper? If you think in such simple and childish terms, you probably don't do well in GP. How's that for a smart JC student?